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Ottawa gives notice legislation to end postal strike is imminent

Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s government gave notice mid-afternoon that it would table legislation Wednesday night to ensure “the mail is delivered,” according to Labour Minister Lisa Raitt.

Members of the media surround Labour Minister Lisa Raitt following the Conservative caucus meeting on Parliament Hill in Ottawa on Wednesday, June 15, 2011. In the past two days Canada Post has locked out its postal workers nation wide and Air Canada employees have gone on strike. (Sean Kilpatrick / THE CANADIAN PRESS)

By Tonda MacCharles and Bruce Campion-Smith Ottawa Bureau

Wed., June 15, 2011

Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s government gave notice mid-afternoon that it would table legislation Wednesday night to ensure “the mail is delivered,” according to Labour Minister Lisa Raitt.

In the Commons, Harper was unapologetic about moving on the two fronts – with back-to-work legislation against striking Air Canada workers, and with as yet-unseen legislation to make sure postal services continue, saying the government would act to ensure all other sectors of the Canadian economy are protected.

In the case of both Air Canada and Canada Post, Harper told the Commons, the two parties were unable to reach a settlement, “threatening to jeopardize economic recovery.”

The government had been reluctant to get involved in the postal dispute, which had seen rotating strikes and mail service scaled back to three days a week.

On Tuesday, Raitt put Air Canada and its striking workers on formal notice that they could face back-to-work legislation unless they settle their dispute quickly.

At the time, Raitt said similar action wasn’t needed for Canada Post since postal service was continuing, though with some disruptions.

“We now have a lock-out so there is a cessation of mail delivery. That’s different than the rolling strikes, that’s different than cutting back on mail service,” she said.

Meanwhile, the union charges that customers’ mail is trapped in the system by the management’s surprise decision to lock out workers.

“All postal workers were ready to distribute mail across the country,” said Denis Lemelin, national president of the Canadian Union of Postal Workers, at a news conference in Ottawa.

When his union launched rotating strikes on June 3, Lemelin said the public was given 72 hours’ notice. In this case, Canada Post abruptly told workers to go home when they arrived for their shifts on Tuesday night, he said.

“They did it with no warning. They trapped the public’s mail. It’s unacceptable,” Lemelin said.

Canada Post said it had no choice but to shut down the system after 12 days of rotating strikes that usually lasted for 24 hours. The two big cities were such down on Tuesday including mail and parcel processing in Mississauga and Toronto. Montreal was also affected.

“The price tag was climbing. It was reaching $100 million,” said Canada Post spokeswoman Anick Losier. “We need to do something to jump start the negotiations.”

Losier said the mail that is in the system is secure. “We’re hoping the union will take this seriously,” she said, adding that in the last few weeks the company has barely seen the union at the bargaining table.

Both sides insist that they do not back to see back-to-work legislation.

“For us, the most important thing, and we always said it to the minister when we met with her, free bargaining is important,” said Lemelin. “It’s the only way that the parties can achieve something now. That’s the only way.”

Losier said Canada Post wants to see the union back at the table and ready to have realistic discussions about how the company can survive and thrive in the world of email.

“We have a good offer on the table,” Losier said, adding the company has moved on sick leave and pensions.

The union is asking for a meeting with Canada Post’s president and CEO Deepak Chopra, and for him to give new orders to his negotiating team “to change the mood” at the table.

For Official Opposition leader Jack Layton, of the labour-backed New Democrats, the two national labour disputes are a test of his self-declared influence in Parliament. Layton argued Wednesday both the postal and Air Canada labour disputes ought to be settled at the negotiating table and not by back-to-work legislation.

“Here we have a company that the government owns and they’ve shut it down — Canada Post. Here we have a company the government doesn’t own (Air Canada) and so it’s gonna bring in back to work legislation. They’re taking draconian measures that are not in the public interest in either case,” he said.

On Air Canada, he said the Conservative government has “clearly taken the company’s side here. This is the side of the managers, those who in some cases walked away with millions of dollars in bonuses and salaries and defined benefit pensions at very high levels.”

He said the legislation has been constructed “so as to bias any decision that any arbitration process would make very much in favour of the company’s agenda here, which is to reduce ultimately people’s access to the pension they were promised.”

With files from Vanessa Lu.

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